BSNL employees plead with PM to drop MTNL merger; say the merger will ruin BSNL’s financial condition | 91mobiles.com

The BSNL employee union said, “We wish to express our serious concern regarding the merger of BSNL and MTNL. The BSNL employees are genuinely concerned that, the merger of MTNL with BSNL will certainly ruin the financial condition of the latter. Due to this reason, right from the beginning, the employees of BSNL have been firmly opposing the merger of BSNL and MTNL,” in a letter to the Prime Minister.

The BSNL employee union further suggested that the government take over MTNL’s Rs 26,000 crore debt and provide financial assistance to BSNL for restoration of the MTNL network. Last year, BSNL took up MTNL’s network in Delhi and Mumbai. 

“Under these circumstances, it is disturbing to hear that the government is moving fast to merge MTNL with BSNL. Already BSNL is struggling hard to come out of its financial crisis. In this situation, if MTNL is merged with BSNL, it will only do irreparable damage to the financial revival of BSNL,” said P Abhimanyu, General Secretary, BSNLEU.

The government approved a Rs 70,000-crore rescue plan for the two state-run telecom operators. The plan includes a virtual retirement scheme (VRS), monetisation of assets, allocation of 4G bands, and merger of two telcos. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology recently suggested the telecom operator merge MTNL’s operation with BSNL and debt and turn MTNL’s assets worth over Rs 26,500 crore into a special purpose vehicle.